F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-012

Tōdaiji Shuni-e (Omizutori — The Water Drawing)

東大寺 修二会（お水取り・お松明）とうだいじ しゅにえ おみずとり おたいまつ

Since 752 CE, the Shuni-e ceremony at Tōdaiji has been performed every year without exception — a run of 1,270-plus consecutive years that makes it one of the longest continually held ritual sequences in human history. For fourteen days in early March, eleven monks (the Rengyōshū) enter seclusion in Nigatsudō Hall on the hillside above the Great Buddha, living in ritual isolation while performing continuous rounds of prayer, prostration, and chanting to atone for humanity's collective transgressions. The ceremony is called Omizutori ("water drawing") for its culminating moment on the night of March 12th–13th, when water drawn from the Wakasa Well — believed to flow from distant Wakasa Province to this sacred point — is presented as an offering. The public sees the Otaimatsu: massive pine torches, up to 8 meters long, carried along the corridor of Nigatsudō Hall and shaken over the crowd below, showering sparks that are believed to carry purification power. Catching those sparks has been an act of deliberate faith for thirteen centuries.